May 5 (Bloomberg) -- Pow, zap and any other comic book
exclamation fits the bill for “The Avengers,” Joss Whedon’s
sure-thing blockbuster that also happens to be a terrific movie.

Masterpiece is too weighty a word for a genre that boasts
hammering demigods and Spandexed superheroes, but “The
Avengers” certainly lays claim to a best-in-category title.

Whedon, revered by sci-fi fanboys for TV’s “Buffy the
Vampire Slayer,” directed and co-wrote (with Zak Penn) this
blaze of a tale.

Featuring the Marvel Comics all-star team that debuted in
ink a half-century ago, “The Avengers” feels like a
culmination -- a perfect cocktail of irony and sentiment, acting
and FX, nostalgia and topicality.

The bickering gang is called into action by Nick Fury
(Samuel L. Jackson), the head of an organization that protects
the globe from aliens, gods and assorted evil-doers.

Beat Loki!

This time around (and newcomers can enjoy the party), the
Avengers are forced to put aside petty differences and big egos
to defeat Loki (Tom Hiddleston, career-making), a banished
demigod hell-bent on conquering Earth.

“I am Loki of Asgard,” the corpse-pale villain hisses,
“and I am burdened with glorious purpose.” Even the bad guys
can turn a phrase.

Whedon lets his actors carry the film’s character-driven
first half, and they shine. Downey and Ruffalo quip like the
pros they are.

The battle-crazed final sequence puts Manhattan under alien
attack, and the 9/11 imagery is both blatant and breathless.
Little wonder that the Tribeca Film Festival chose “The
Avengers” for its closing night honors, screened for an invited
audience of Ground Zero’s first responders.

“The Avengers,” from Walt Disney Studios, is playing
across the U.S. Rating: ***1/2 (Evans)

‘Marigold Hotel’

“The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel” follows a group of
British retirees who fall for an ad on the Web that showcases an
alluring retirement home in Jaipur, India. The place turns out
to be a run-down wreck operated by a delusional young optimist
(Dev Patel, of “Slumdog Millionaire”) with girlfriend
problems.

Most of the geezers get over the dust and poverty and
challenges to their intestinal tracts and open up to the
vibrancy of the tumult around them.

Romance blossoms. The movie is as preoccupied with sex as
it would be if the actors were 50 years younger, though then it
wouldn’t offer the titillation of guessing which ones aren’t
going to make it to the end.

And what actors. In her late 70s, Judi Dench can do coyness
with the freshness of a girl playing her first Juliet. Tom
Wilkinson is touching as a gay judge returning to India to look
for a lost love.

And Celia Imrie and Ronald Pickup bring enough dignity to
their unappealing roles as sex-starved old goats to walk away
without being mortified.

Maggie Smith

As a racist housekeeper forced to swallow her pride and
come to India for a cheap hip replacement, Maggie Smith has
fallen from the social heights of “Downton Abbey,” but she can
still move mountains with the elevation of an eyebrow. And of
course the more appalling her reactions (“If I can’t pronounce
it, I don’t want to eat it”), the funnier she is.

The director, John Madden (“Shakespeare in Love”), works
swiftly and easily, even with nostrums thudding like drumbeats
every minute or so. The picture is designed to reassure aging
Baby Boomers that adventure and sex will remain options well
past the threshold of dotage, and who could mind hearing that?

It’s almost impossible to resist such a puppy-dog eagerness
to please -- until the last half hour, when the script pours on
so much sugar that your bile may rise in revolt. At least mine
did. To paraphrase Trotsky: Every crowd pleaser is allowed to be
stupid on occasion, but “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel”
abuses the privilege.